A number of far-left radical actors and filmmakers in Hollywood have been working around the clock to derail the potential $111 billion merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, the reason being the company is fronted by a CEO who supports or is at least friendly toward President Donald Trump.
These celebrities, including Marvel actor Mark Ruffalo and filmmaker Alex Gibney, held a meeting with California Attorney General Rob Bonta to try convincing him to scrap the planned merger, according to a report from The New York Times published on May 26, 2026. Netflix flaked out of its bid for Warner Bros. in February after Paramount increased their offer to $31 per share, which Warner Bros. referred to as a “superior proposal.”
The meeting came after Democracy Defenders Fund (DDF) member Norm Eisen, a former ambassador for the Obama administration, put out a letter in opposition to the deal that received over 1,000 signatures from actors, writers, and directors, the NY Times said in its April report. “We have witnessed a steep decline in the number of films produced and released, alongside a narrowing of the kinds of stories that are financed and distributed,” the letter said.
According to The Daily Caller, the letter also said, “Increasingly, a small number of powerful entities determine what gets made — and on what terms — leaving creators and independent businesses with fewer viable paths to sustain their work.” Eisen then got to work organizing the meeting between Bonta and Ruffalo. “Behavioral remedies have historically proven to be hard to enforce,” Bonta stated during the meeting.
“We don’t want to make that same mistake again here. So it could be a block, it could be behavioral remedies backed by structural remedies. Again, we haven’t decided what we’re going to do,” he added. Paramount responded by calling the merger “fundamentally pro-competitive” and said the newly formed company would produce competition with “global streaming platforms such as Netflix and large tech companies.”
Paramount then made the case that the merger would help boost competition for premium content and “help revitalize and reinforce theatrical exhibition.” A spokesperson for Bonta’s office gave a statement to the Daily Caller saying, “The Paramount acquisition of Warner Brothers remains an active investigation, and we do not have any updates to share at this time.”
“The film and entertainment industry in California not only has historical importance to our state, it also is a critical sector that buoys the state’s economy of California and touches the lives of Americans daily,” Bonta said in a press release from February. “The proposed Warner Brothers transactions must receive a full and robust review, and California is taking a very close look. We are committed to fighting market consolidation that we find unlawful.”
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Paramount CEO David Ellison’s dad, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, is a close friend and supporter of President Trump. Before Paramount offered their generous bid for Warner Bros., Trump said Netflix’s bid for the company “could be a problem.” Shortly thereafter, Netflix withdrew its offer after Paramount made a better bid after months of trying to persuade the company to accept it. “We’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive,” Netflix went on to say in a February 26 statement.